


And Have Only Memories On Which To Depend

by aryaofoldstones



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:03:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18793549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryaofoldstones/pseuds/aryaofoldstones
Summary: Gendry laughed, but the look in his eyes was queer. “Why are you looking at me like that?”“You really haven’t changed all that much.” He shrugged, smiling still.Set at the end of 8.02.





	And Have Only Memories On Which To Depend

“D’you hear that?” A shiver ran up Arya’s spine, thinking that somehow — in the heat of the moment or the rush that came after — she had missed the sound of the horn that heralded the arrival of the dead. “Someone’s singing.”

Arya listened for a moment, tuning out the sound of Gendry breathing beside her to catch the whisper of a song drifting through the stones.

“Podrick.”

“Podrick?” Gendry’s brow furrowed and he rolled onto his side, settling his hand on her cloak covered belly.

“Brienne of Tarth’s squire.”

“Brienne—,” voice gruff, Gendry’s hand fisted in the fabric. “I know he’s Brienne of Tarth’s squire.”

 _How’d you know it was him? D’you know him? How? Why?_ His jealousy was unspoken, stupid and a bit thrilling. Arya turned onto her side as well, pillowing her head on her clasped hands. She smiled, teeth biting into her bottom lip.

“Well, I did say I wanted to know what it was like to lie with three different men.” Gendry gaped. Arya laughed, a sound it seemed only Gendry could pull from her. “Stupid.”

Podrick’s voice grew a little and the words were clearer.

_The ones she had lost and the ones she had found._

“Jenny’s Song. It’s a sad one.”

“You know it?” Arya nodded. She pulled one of her hands from under her head and reached out to place it on Gendry’s face, thumb resting just on the corner of his mouth.

“It was my brother Robb’s favorite.” Gendry turned his head ever so slightly and kissed her thumb. “A man destined to be king falls in love with a wild girl and casts off his crown for her. Then he dies in a fire and she goes mad.”

_She couldn’t remember their names._

She thought about what the almost-maester, Sam, had said, about death being forgetting, being forgotten. She had been so close to death so many times, in that way and the other. And how long had it been since she had spoken of Robb?

_You wanted me to come to Winterfell._

Had it been then, before he was murdered even? Had Gendry shamed her so much with his rejection?

Gendry slid his hand from her hip to her rear and tangled their legs together, tugging her close to him. His cloak was between them in places, but her skin felt aflame where it touched his. The hand which was not occupied tangled in her hair and cradled her skull.

“Which one did you like?” Before she could answer he kissed her again, pressing kisses all down her throat to her breasts. He settled there, hands and lips moving over her with reverence.

“My favorite was Nymeria’s,” Arya paused, her direwolf howling in her head, “it was the only song that ever made me cry. Thinking of her crossing the sea and conquering, settling with her ten thousand ships all ablaze. Jon used to sing it for me sometimes, and I heard a bard perform it once when he was hosted by Sansa and my mother in the glass gardens. He had a fool with him juggling fire and it still wasn’t enough to distract from his sounding like a tone-deaf drunkard.” Gendry laughed, but the look in his eyes was queer. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You really haven’t changed all that much.” He shrugged, smiling still. “Listening to you talk.”

She hadn’t realized how eager she was to talk to him, to tell him things, though she had said nothing of consequence. That was not the Arya she knew herself to be anymore, and yet…

_And she never wanted to leave._

Being with him, felt like before, when home still meant her mother and four brothers not two. Being _with him_ , felt like a future she had not earned. A tomorrow she did not deserve and never could.

“How did it go?” His lips were on her belly. “Nymeria’s song. Sounds a shade less terrible than the one Brienne of Tarth’s squire is croaking out. Sing a little.”

“Is that a command, m’lord?” His face dropped for a moment and in that moment Arya felt the distance there still was between them, even as they spent their final hours together. His cheekbone pressed into her and a huff of breath from his mouth spread a chill across the wet his tongue had left on her stomach. Arya’s throat felt dry. “I don’t have a pretty voice.”

Gendry turned his head, chin taking up his cheek’s place on her belly.

“Liar.” He pinched her side. “I’ve never heard you sing but you talk pretty enough that I can figure.”

Arya’s heart picked up tempo in her chest at Gendry’s soft words and his gaze, heavy with some emotion she couldn’t name. She shoved him off of her and flipped them both with such quickness, Gendry scarcely had time to grunt in protest. Arya hovered over him, bare again, and felt him hard against her thigh. His eyes shone in the light, blue no more than a sliver of color against the black that spread outward. She took his wrists in her hands, pinning them above their heads, and kissed him again.

Arya bit at his lip, his chin, teeth a dagger at his throat as she sucked on the skin there. Gendry broke his arms free of her grip, one hand going to her breast and the other to the small of her back. He pressed her hips down so she was no longer hovering but seated firmly against him.

“D’you—,” he broke off, wry smile playing at his lips, “d’you remember that song at the acorn castle?”

Arya rolled her hips against his, delighting in the way his eyes flickered closed and he twitched against her.

“My featherbed is deep and soft, and there I'll lay you down,” the words sprung from her lips, somewhere between singing and whispering. Gendry’s smile scrunched up his face and brought lines to the corners of his eyes.

“No featherbed for me,” his voice wasn’t smooth and clear like Podrick’s but rough like his hands, and she loved it all the more for that. “But I can be your forest love, and you my forest lass.”

“That’s not how it goes.” Arya rolled her eyes even as her breathing quickened to match the pace of her heart. Gendry just hummed, kissing her.

_And the ones who had loved her the most._

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is alarmingly cheesy but in my defense SO ARE THEY!


End file.
